A little piece of Morgan Hill is going to be at the 84th Academy Awards this year.
A film shown at the Poppy Jasper Film Festival in Morgan Hill last October, “Time Freak” by Andrew Bowler and Gigi Causey is nominated for an Oscar under the short film-live action category.
The film is also the winner of the Poppy Jasper Film Festival’s science fiction category for 2011.
Bowler said they decided to enter “Time Freak” into the Poppy Jasper festival because they heard it was a worthwhile festival with a great film base, even for a small community. Although he and wife Causey could not attend 2011’s festival, they hope to make it next year.
“Time Freak” has also won best short film in the Seattle International Film Festival, the jury award for the Omaha Film Festival, audience award for the Fort Collins TriMedia Festival and the best short award for the Stony Brook Film Festival.
“It’s been an exceptional year we are honored and overwhelmed. It feels like a couple months ago we got a high score in the video game and its just lasted,” said Bowler.
To submit a film to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Bowler said there are 30 qualifying international film festivals that filmmakers need to win a category in order to be eligible. The Seattle International Film Festival was that festival for them. The couple received the news early Tuesday morning when the Academy released its announcements for nominations at 5:30 a.m. California time.
You can watch their reaction to the nomination here.
The eleven and a half minute short was filmed in 2010 in a basement in Brooklyn, and was one of 107 shorts submitted to the Academy. Bowler said he and Causey were deciding to either make a short film or put a down payment on an apartment in New York.
“The goal was to make a short film and have a successful one at a film festival. It’s always a question of ‘Will an audience see my film?’ ‘Will they like it?,’ ” said Bowler.
“Time Freak” is about a neurotic inventor who hopes to correct his past mistakes by creating a time machine and gets lost traveling through yesterday. The film stars John Conor Brooke, Michael Nathanson and Emilea Wilson.
Bowler and Causey currently live in Los Angeles and will attend the Academy of Awards ceremony Feb. 26 at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood.
